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GPS for the Soul

By Arianna Huffington, Tribune Media Services
on Apr 18, 2012

Just over two years ago, I spoke at a conference commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Internet designation ".com." The panel I was on was asked to "gaze into the crystal ball" and predict what the game-changing inventions would be during the next 25 years of the Internet. One of mine was less of a prediction than a hope: that one day someone would create an app that would gauge the state of your mind, body and spirit, then automatically offer the exact steps you would need to take to realign all three aspects of your being.

At the time, I was just thinking out loud. But after the event, as I continued to write and speak about the idea, the response I got from others who shared my sense of urgency about this need was incredible. At some point I realized: Hey, I'm surrounded by dozens of engineers and coders and brilliant, creative people, so why can't my fantasy become a reality?

So this week, HuffPost announced a free app we call "GPS for the Soul," projected to launch in June. The philosophy behind it is based on two truths about human beings. First, that we all have within us a centered place of wisdom, harmony and balance. The second truth is that we're all going to veer away from that place, again and again and again. That's the nature of life. In fact, we may be off course more often than we are on course.

So what we need is a great course-correcting mechanism - a GPS for the Soul - because otherwise the consequences can be serious, in terms of our health, our relationships, our jobs and even our country. We have no shortage of examples of smart leaders making terrible decisions. It's not from lack of IQ, but from lack of wisdom. The faster we can course-correct, the fewer negative consequences there will be.

The Roman philosopher Plotinus said, "knowledge has three degrees - opinion, science, illumination." The first, he wrote, we get from sense, the second from dialectic, and the third, illumination, comes from intuition. The hyperconnectedness allowed - actually, demanded - by the Internet, which has made the first two types of knowledge very easy to come by, has also taken us further away from that illumination, or wisdom, or intuition, or whatever you want to call it that is so essential to living a fulfilling and meaningful life.

The Internet and the rise of social media have, of course, given us amazing tools to connect, and to effect change in ways large and small. At the same time, there's a snake lurking in this cyber Garden of Eden. Our 24/7 connection to the digital world often disconnects us from the real world around us - from our physical surroundings, from our loved ones, and especially from ourselves. We see the effects of this in every aspect of our lives.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Ndubuisi Ekekwe, founder of the nonprofit African Institution of Technology, notes how overconnectedness is actually bad for the bottom line. "We're also jeopardizing long-term productivity by eliminating predictable time off that ensures balance in our lives," he writes. Ekekwe also points to Professor Leslie Perlow, author of the forthcoming "Sleeping With Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work." Perlow presents research showing how deliberately disconnecting from their digital devices led to people feeling more satisfied in their jobs and their lives.

And then there is Freedom, the popular app that allows users to cut off their online access for a specified amount of time. The app has had over 300,000 users so far. "I'm much more relaxed, and I get a lot more done," says founder Fred Stutzman.(

Of course, I realize there's a paradox in the idea that, of all things, an app can help free us from our hyperconnected lives. But as Freedom shows, the solution to the problems created by technology isn't anti-technology, but more and better technology.

Here's how our new app will work: When you tap your phone's sensor, GPS for the Soul will provide you with several measures of your current stress levels, including your heart rate and heart rate variability. (Subsequent releases will provide even more information.) It will then connect you to whatever you need to get to a place of balance. It might be music, or poetry, or breathing exercises, or photos of a person or place you love - or a combination of all of these.

Since no one knows better than you what helps you de-stress and tap into that place of peace inside yourself, you'll be able to personalize the app's feedback you receive, programming the app to send you just what you need to course-correct. Personally, I'll be programming mine to send me meditation instructions, photos of my daughters, and my favorite moments from Mozart's "The Magic Flute."

I hope the app will be just the beginning of a journey to reconnect with our creativity, our intuition, our wisdom - and ourselves.

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Arianna Huffington is president and editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Media Group. Her email address is arianna@huffingtonpost.com.

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